More than half of all power customers in Ohio are buying their electricity from a supplier other than their local utility.

A centralohio.com report published Tuesday in The Cincinnati Enquirer attributes the trend to the deregulation in the electricity market that started in steps in 2001. Now the state is considering even more changes to encourage customers to shop for electricity.

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The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) showed at the end of September that 51 percent of Ohio homes and 52 percent of all electricity customers in utility service areas were buying their power from a competitive supplier.

That doesn't include the 380,000 mostly rural customers served by nonprofit electricity cooperatives, which don't participate in the open market.

Switch rates exceeded 50 percent for the first time earlier this year. PUCO, meanwhile, has been studying what is and isn't working in the competitive market.

Commission chairman Todd Snitchler said the effort is meant to "identify barriers to growth in the marketplace and highlight the positive things that are being done so we don't have any unintended consequences and change something that might actually be working well."

A report is expected early in the new year. It would then be open for comments from the public, and the commission would later make policy recommendations to the Ohio Legislature for consideration.